The 2012 election in the U.S. may have seemed like a close race to many political pundits but it wasn’t. As always, big corporations bankrolled candidates in both the Democratic and Republican parties and bought their votes lock, stock and barrel, contributing over $2 billion out of the $6 billion spent this year.

Much of the money was spent by candidates on political advertising campaigns such as buying TV time to influence voters.

“Some corporations have spent maybe tens of millions over time; that's a drop in the bucket compared to the benefits they will reap if they're successful in getting legislation stopped or started,” Sheila Krumholz, executive director of CRP told the Los Angeles Times. “When you're talking about a GE [General Electric] that pays no corporate taxes, the lobbying they've invested in — even if it's tens of millions of dollars a year — is pennies on the dollar compared to the benefit.”

The labeling proposal was put on the California voting card as a “ballot initiative” – essentially a century old popular referendum system that been used by citizen groups to ask fellow citizens to approve a variety of issues over the years from licensing marijuana to funding schools. If such an initiative is supported by the majority of the population, it becomes law although several popular initiatives have later been defeated in court challenges.

The measure required genetically engineered foods to put labels on either the front or back of the product, although alcohol, beef, dairy and eggs would have been exempted. Unpackaged goods like sweet corn and salmon would be required to have a sign on the shelf. (More than 60 other countries have such rules including China, the European Union, Japan and Russia)

The impact would have been tremendous since some 90 percent of U.S. corn and soybean are genetically modified. And even though the proposal was limited to California, it would have impacted most national producers because almost one in eight U.S. citizens lives in the western state. Other states would likely have followed suit, just as they did after California pioneered regulations on vehicle emissions (1965) and tobacco control laws (1989).

The biggest funders to defeat Proposition 37 were Monsanto – the giant agribusiness company based in Missouri – which poured over $7 million into defeating the ballot initiative while Dupont gave $4.9 million and PepsiCo $2.14 million. BASF, Bayer, Dow and Sygenta each contributed $2 million.

“What is at stake this time around is not just the fate of genetically modified crops but the public’s confidence in the industrial food chain,” wrote Michael Pollan, a nationally recognized food writer, in the run up to the election. “The fight is about the power of Big Food.”

But activists say they won’t give up. “It’s easy to dismiss voting with your fork as merely a lifestyle choice, and an elite one at that,” says Pollan who notes that 7,800 farmers markets have sprung up around the country in the last couple of decades to provide an alternative to industrially produced food. “(S)ooner or later, the food movement will have to engage in the hard politics of Washington — of voting with votes, not just forks.”